Google: We Don't Recommend Generic Disavow Files

There are many folks out there that have generic or master lists of disavow files that they bring over from one site to the next. But Google doesn't recommend using a generic disavow file and goes as far as to call them potentially "unnecessary work."

Google's John Mueller responded to the question from former Google spam fighter Murat Yatagan who asked if they should use a generic disavow file from site to site and keep up that one list. John said it can act as a "placebo" if the links are already not counted by Google, it also can act that way if those sites are not even linking to your site. In addition, it can end up hurting the site if the links are actually benefiting the site.

kind of analyze the links that are going to a site and say well these are all known spammy ones anyway I can kind of automatically put those on my disavow file when I see them coming in. But for the rest I try to actually focus on it useful for the site rather than just to say well this is my generic disavow file I'll upload this to all my domains. Because I don't think that that really provides a lot of value in the sense as a positive effect on the site.